Ventriloquist Michael Harrison embraces the magical escapism of puppetry
Ahead of his Anvil Theatre show, the long-time cruise-line performer talks about dispelling childhood fears with lovable characters
Michael Harrison
Anvil Theatre presents Ventastic: Reimagining the Art of Ventriloquism on January 31 at 2 pm and 7:30 pm
MAGIC RUNS IN Michael Harrison’s blood.
His great-grandfather Frank Merryfield, born 1879 in Cornwall, England, was a talented magician better known as the Cornish Wizard, who travelled the world during the vaudeville days of the 1930s, meeting and collaborating with famous figures like Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston. He eventually settled in Victoria, where he raised a family and continued performing on the Island.
Though Harrison never got a chance to meet his great-grandfather, his grandmother—who was her dad’s assistant for many years—often shared exciting stories of life on the road touring North America and Europe, and would show the family his original scrapbook and newspaper clippings from the 1920s to ’50s.
So when Harrison’s parents bought him a magic kit for his 10th birthday, there was no surprise that it clicked instantly. He had discovered a passion that gave him a voice.
“I could use this magic as a tool to talk to people,” Harrison reflects in a phone interview with Stir. “Whereas before, I didn’t really have any tool that I could use, and my shyness always took over. So I was very intrigued by this entertainment thing. I thought, ‘I need to learn more useless skills.’ So I bought a book on juggling, a book on ventriloquism. I bought a unicycle. I learned mime. I took breakdance classes. I got into theatre.
“I mean, anything that I could get my hands on, as far as the arts—well, other than ballet or stuff like that—anything I was capable of doing, I sort of jumped at,” he continues. “And then, over a little bit of time, I quickly figured out that ventriloquism, for whatever reason, was the draw for me. It really was what I was most passionate about. So I really started to focus on that.”
Fast-forward nearly four decades, and Harrison is one of just a few full-time ventriloquists touring the world. He has hosted a popular Disney Cruise Line show for more than 20 years and even competed on Season 3 of America’s Got Talent. Now he’ll be bringing his fan-favourite production Ventastic: Reimagining the Art of Ventriloquism to Anvil Theatre for two performances on January 31.
Ventastic is always evolving, with Harrison regularly interchanging about eight puppets in the show, piecing together a different collection of hilarious scenes for each audience he performs for. He describes it as the ultimate family-friendly production—there are lots of bits, gags, and magical visuals for kids, with plenty of clever jokes thrown in for parents too.
Michael Harrison with Ana Conda
As it turns out, says Harrison, many adults are initially hesitant about watching a ventriloquist show because of deep-rooted childhood fear. Depending on which generation they grew up in, that may be from seeing a sinister-looking character at a birthday party, or being subjected to a scary 1962 episode of The Twilight Zone called “The Dummy” (in which a puppet takes over its puppeteer’s mind, driving him to murder people), or watching Anthony Hopkins’s performance as madman magician Corky with his vicious dummy Fats in the beyond-creepy 1978 psychological-horror film Magic.
Harrison has spent his career dispelling those fears. All his puppets, which range from a tennis ball with googly eyes to a Muppet-esque boy, are instantly likeable and full of personality.
“People tell me all the time, ‘I watched you for the first 20 seconds to see if your lips were moving, and after that, my focus was entirely on the puppet—because you gave it a personality, you brought it to life, and it was as if there were two different people or entities onstage talking,’” Harrison says. “And so it’s that moment of escapism that people are just drawn to. They just can’t help but look at the puppet when the puppet is talking.”
One of his signature characters is Ana Conda, a 25-foot-long snake puppet that was designed locally and built in California. The puppet coils around Harrison’s entire body as if she’s constricting him. With her magenta scales, lime-green underbelly, luscious eyelashes, and single fang in the middle of her maw, Ana Conda is the perfect mix of alluring and amusing (sorta like Dragon from Shrek).
“I’d never actually seen a snake wrapped up like this before, but I loved the idea of it: larger than life, big, bold, and beautiful, with a personality all her own,” Harrison says excitedly. “Yet there’s a bit of an illusion there. It looks as if she’s hugging me and my hands are sticking out the bottom. Of course, they’re not quite real hands.”
He shares that last part in a cheeky whisper—as we all know, magicians aren’t supposed to reveal their secrets. But for those who are curious, Harrison uses one hand to manoeuver Ana Conda’s head, which even has blinking eyelids, and the other to wag her tail.
Creating a puppet like Ana Conda is no small feat. Harrison had to fly out to L.A. for a fitting where his whole body was measured, right down to the length of his fingers, so that his hands would sit perfectly in the gloves used to control the snake. Travelling with Ana Conda is also, quite literally, no small feat—she gets stuffed into two huge road cases when Harrison brings her on tour.
Now, Harrison is keeping the magic of ventriloquism alive for a new generation of inquisitive minds—just as his great-grandfather once did for him.
“We have a five-year-old granddaughter, and I can sit beside her in her home with my puppets, and she will not look at me when the puppet is talking,” he says fondly. “She will stand directly in front of the puppet and talk to the puppet’s face, because she still believes that the puppet is actually a real character that Papa has brought to life in front of her.
“They don’t get the technical end of it, you know?” he acknowledges. “So it’s fun seeing that disbelief in the young kids. And you know at some point it’s gonna click—but they’re still enthralled and engulfed with the character, even after they know that the character isn’t real.” 
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